Ringling turns life upside down

November 06, 2004|By Chris Jones, Tribune arts reporter.

Despite watching countless annual editions of The Greatest Show on Earth, I never saw an elephant fly. But I can now state, positively and unequivocally, that I not only have witnessed a performing cow, but I also have reviewed at least part of a show perched upside down with my head on my seat.

How else could one do justice to the Kai LeClerc Family who go about their domestic business -- making tea, playing basketball -- all while hanging upside down from the roof of Rosemont's Allstate Arena?

Only at the perpetually anachronistic Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

As far as one can discern from the ground, the LeClercs' feet are attached to nothing whatsoever. But they do not come plummeting down to make an embarrassing mess on the floor.

I assume this is all done with industrial-strength magnets in the shoes, but that doesn't account for the moments when they lift their feet from the floor.

Within the circus industry, this knockout act -- and I don't use that term lightly -- is looked on with unusual respect. (Its reputation preceded it to Chicago.) It's an old-fashioned illusion, replete with a specificity that usually is very tough to replicate in arena shows, and it's the kind of intensely humanistic experience that you sure cannot generate on your computer.

The LeClerc Family is the ace in the hole in the 134th edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a show that has lost none of its family-friendly traditionalism (nor its bevy of big beasts) but that looks especially fresh this year.

You rarely think of the circus as a place for interesting writing. But while you'd never think of this old-fashioned circus as being in any way post-modern or adult-oriented (you have to go to Las Vegas for that), the producers at Feld Entertainment have hired both a songstress, in the person of Danette Sheppard, and the funky African-American playwright Keith Glover to liven up the language. And thus, for once, the ringmaster's words go well beyond the usual "Ladies and Gentlemen . . ."

The alliteration-loving Glover penned a plethora of phrases: "We got the girls with the curls," "The ferocious freeway of fury" and, by way of introducing chief-clown David Larible, "The professor of prestidigitation."

Larible is very much in the old European clowning tradition, emphasizing precise body movements and carefully planned interactive set pieces -- such as his classic bit in which he turns various audience volunteers into a rag-tag band.

The other unmissable act in the 134th edition is Crazy Wilson, a psychopath who gets inside a massive cylindrical attraction, here called the Pendulum of Pandemonium. If part of one's circus-going experience is genuine fear that the performer will be chopped up and fed to the lions, Crazy Wilson is your go-to guy. You start worrying about Mrs. Crazy Wilson -- but then she shows up doing something equally insane.